Articles - Dissent Magazine

Criminals and Culture Makers

Laur Lewis Neal ▪ Summer 2014

In 1970s New York City, urban decay gave birth to graffiti culture, an act of defiance and self-affirmation that terrified the middle classes. But today, “street art” usually symbolizes gentrification.

A New Agenda for American Families and the Economy

Heather Boushey ▪ Summer 2014

Too often, so-called women’s economic issues appear as an afterthought, rather than as fundamental to family economic security and the economy overall.

Vanished Writer, Vanished Book

Harvey Swados ▪ Winter 2016

…I cannot write otherwise than I do write. I am unable to, and I will not, even though I should want to violate myself; there is a literary law which makes it impossible to violate a literary talent—even with your …

On Literary Criticism and Political Action

Jim Swan ▪ November – December 1967

It was a pleasure to read Lawrence W. Hyman’s statement: “It is not a moral direction that we must look for in literature but a disturbance.” Hyman provides an exciting way for handling moralistic objections—from Left and Right—that art is …

Radical Linguistics in an Age of Extinction

Ross Perlin ▪ Summer 2014

In the future of the world’s languages, irreplaceable sources of radical possibility are at stake.

A Critic of Literature and Politics

Robert Boyers ▪ March – April 1966

Writers and Politics by Conor Cruise O’Brien New York, Pantheon. 259 pp. $4.95. Conor Cruise O’Brien, at least on the international scene the radical-liberal intellectual par excellence, has recently published a new collection of articles and speeches, Writers and Politics. …

So Who’s Not Mad? : On Marat/Sade and Nihilism

Lionel Abel ▪ March – April 1966

It was Susan Sontag, I think, who first pointed up the extreme theatricality of Marat/Sade. Susan Sontag was right, Marat/Sade is theatrical. Is the play dramatic, though? About this there seems to be some question in even Miss Sontag’s mind. …

“What is Literature?”: An Open Letter to Jean-Paul Sartre

Lionel Abel ▪ Summer 1965

Dear Sartre: May I take public issue with you for the claims you make in “What is Literature?” You claim literary importance, even preeminence, for socially committed, or “responsible” writing; you claim also that anyone who happens to be unprejudiced …

Teaching Poetry in the Provinces

T.J. Ross ▪ Winter 1964

“…Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of `facts’ they feel stuffed…`brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion, without moving…Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology…That …